Monday, January 22, 2007

Strange

“Pinoys enjoying boom, they just don’t know it.” Thus reads a heading in a broadsheet (PDI 21 January 2007). It conveys the substance of a speech of the national leadership about the triumphant Philippine economic gains leading the nation to a “first world” country. With great pride, it said with much humility that the same national leadership is but “an instrument of the people’s most ardent aspirations”.

In other words, the Filipinos have already so much. Yet, why do they have less and feel lost in having their basic needs satisfied? These Pinoys simply do not know how blessed they are. The country is already so progressive in its economic development and has much to be grateful. But why do citizens still complain of not having enough food, clothing and shelter? These people are altogether ignorant of their great fortune and wherefore shamefully ungrateful.

It would not be fair to say that the national leadership is deliberately lying in its own perception and affirmation of its illustrious economic achievement. But it is an objectively very strange way of looking at the real economic standing of the state of the nation—especially as far as the multi-million of poor starving and sick Filipinos are concerned. Just the same, it says what it sees—without the intention to lie.

And this is precisely the big problem with the national leadership. It sees what does not exist. It confirms what is not present. It perceives what is not reality. How sad but true. Someone is lying basically saying the opposite of what the person really knows. But to be convinced of something as a glowing truth when it is in fact a miserable falsehood, this is a big problem for everybody else concerned.

This is exactly the big danger poised by the national leadership it sees abundance when there is poverty. It claims development in the face of misery. There must be something definitely wrong in this ominous contradiction. And the losers are one and the same, viz., all those it attempts to lead and pretends to govern.

It is no wonder that to the miserable poor and depressed millions of Filipinos, the country is in effect going nowhere. What the national leadership has is all wrong. But everything is just right for its avid allies and blind followers who have been having all the goodies and the fun. The rest of the people let them take care of themselves if they could.

Again, when someone sees something big when there is actually nothing, claims great achievements when such is really non-existent, this is something to worry about—a lot!

Oscar Cruz

About The Blogger

Most Reverend Oscar V. Cruz, D.D. is the Archbishop-Emeritus of Lingayen-Dagupan. He is currently the Judicial Vicar of the National Tribunal of Appeals. He is a prolific writer, having published several dozen books mostly on judicial and moral matters. His most recent book is about the Social Doctrines of the Church. He also has a blog where he posts regularly. He is an avid coin collector and dabbles in woodworking art.